My Demons
by dance-tilyou'redead
Summary: I want to bare my soul to her and I want to love her. I know she wants to love me too but I always keep her at arms length. The hurt in her eyes when I tell her I don't care tears into me.— —Angsty Ficlet for Brittana. I just have a lot of feelings!


**AN:** This is very angst and could be a little trigger. Nothing explicit though so don't worry.

* * *

I want to bare my soul to her and I want to love her. I know she wants to love me too but I always keep her at arms length. The hurt in her eyes when I tell her I don't care tears into me. Every ounce of loathing I have is directed inwards. I can feel that urge growing in me to cause myself that physical pain which will reflect the dark scars inside of me.

When Brittany calls me to tell me that she is dating someone and she cares about _him_ I feel my heart clench and my chest threatens to collapse. When she says that we can't have sex anymore the tears prick my eyes. It's not just about orgasms, although they are nice as well. The intimacy of sex with someone...no, not someone. The intimacy of sex with Brittany brings me closer to that feeling of lightness and wholeness I recall from my childhood. That feeling when you're a kid and someone you love hugs you tight. That feeling of being safe and content with your life. That's what I feel when I am with her.

It's that feeling which I pushed away from myself. I ignored it and tried to bury it under miles of attitude and bitch persona. Now Brittany has finally turned away from me. She's taken away all the light and hope I have left in this miserable world.

When I'm sitting in English just a week later it's all these feelings which bubble up inside of me and pour out onto my page. We're studying poetry this semester and the teacher has instructed us to write a poem about love. In English, just like every other class, Brittany sits to my left. I can practically feel the heat of Brittany's attention on me as I lean over my book. I resist the urge to turn and look at her. Those bright blue eyes can melt my heart in moments and if I look at her now I don't know what I'll do.

I write out the last line and read back down my page. I cross out and rewrite a line or two then it's done. I glance towards Mr Graham who has his feet up on his desk and appears to be playing angry birds. I know that he will probably have a few of us read our poems out loud so I quickly rip my page out and force it to the back of my book. I scrawl out some nonsense about a fictitious male protagonist before our allotted writing time is up.

When Mr Graham puts down his iPhone and acknowledges his class for the first time in thirty minutes I know that I'll be asked to go up. This guy has had it in for me all year and I swear he takes extra delight in embarrassing me in front of my 'Peers'. He calls out three boys, two other girls and me to take our places at the front of the class to read out what we've written.

All three boys mumble and giggle their way through three awkwardly rhyming poems about how much they love football or Katy Perry's tits or some such garbage. The first girl, who's name I can't remember reads her poem which is about her Mom. It's actually quite good and I make a mental note to partner with her for any group assignments. I blank out the second girl because she has this unfortunate nasal quality to her voice that I just can't tolerate.

When my turn comes up to read, I give my book a dramatic flick and glance towards the teacher with a smirk. I managed to find words to rhyme with both tumescent _and_ flaccid. I start on the first line and Mr Graham's eyes widen slightly. I keep my voice even as I hear nervous giggles escaping the rows of students in front of me. By the time I get to the line about Reginald's quivering tumescence the class is in hysterics and Mr Graham clears his throat gruffly telling me that we'd heard quite enough. I breathe a quiet sigh of relief because I only had one more line left to read.

I move to take my seat at the back of the room and I can't help but catch Brittany's eye as she winks at me. I smile back as I sit down facing the room. As the last boy squeezes back behind his desk I see Mr Graham bending over to retrieve something from the floor.

My heart nearly stops when I realize that it's a page from _my _book. I quickly flick to the back praying that I'm wrong. I shuffle through the three sheets jammed into the back twice before I accept the only conclusion available to me. My poem had just found its way into the public eye. I feel the colour completely drain from my face but I make determined effort to maintain my loose frame and relaxed posture.

I can see Brittany from the corner of my eye as she glances from my colourless face to the paper in Mr Graham's hands. I know she'll know its mine in a few moments and there is nothing I can do about it but pray that Mr Graham will just throw the page in the garbage so I can find and dispose of it later.

I suck in a sharp breath when I see Mr Graham pull his glasses out of his pocket to read the page. His eyes are narrowed speculatively and I can see his lips moving as he reads my words. I feel my body ache. No one was supposed to read those words, let alone this crotchety old guy who makes a weekly habit of calling me out in front of the class.

When his eyes reach the bottom of the page he is frowning deeply and I can't help but wonder what was so bad about it. He flips the page over but finds nothing there. I am eternally glad that I hadn't been doodling on the corners on the page. It might have been something of a give away had I been scribbling mine and Brittany's names in little love hearts about my book.

Finally Mr Graham lifts the page to present it to the class, "Who does this belong to? Jeff, Michael, Jamie, Santana?" He glances around the room at the people that had read their poems a few moments ago, "You're not in trouble if you wrote this. I just need to know," I remain impassive as he looks straight at me. "It's really quite good," His gaze moves on to the girl—Jamie?—who had written about her Mom, "If no one is going to claim it then I'll read it to the class."

It's meant to be an empty threat. He assumes that whoever owns that paper will dash across the room to collect it before he can get past the first line. I feel Brittany staring at me. She knows it's mine by my complete lack of a reaction. Or maybe she knows because of some tell which is invisible to anyone but her. Either way, if Mr Graham reads the poem out loud she will know what it's about. She'll know everything.

I take a deep breath as he reads the first stanza to the class.

_Quiet shadows on the bedroom floor  
__Creep slowly towards me.  
__Their jagged edges threaten,  
__The swollen dark consumes._

I hold the breath until he gets to the end of the second stanza.

_My demons burn within my frame  
__Like a fever consumes the heart.  
__I have no defence against their whispers.  
__Their gaze, their judgments mark._

I risk a glance at Brittany and see her swallow thickly as tears form to glisten in her eyes. At the first line of the third stanza the first tear falls and I press my nails deep into the palms of my hands. I force my eyes to the front of the room and concentrate hard on the pain in my hands. It distracts from the tightness in my chest and behind my eyes.

_The flesh reflects the soul's dark scars.  
__Steel and stone become my friends.  
__I train my skin, renew the hurt  
__To feel my flesh as my soul's part._

_She holds this soul's same fleshly bounds  
__Against her taintless shield.  
__Her light which guides me  
__Consumes the aching dark._

_I reach for her, my soul expands  
__To press my demons bare.  
__Their burning, scratching, taunting form  
__Relents and breaks._

Brittany's tears are streaming silently down her face and a silent panic builds in me at the prospect of the teacher—or worse the students—witnessing her reaction. I glance around the room to see if anyone is watching her and am shocked to see that every single student in the class is staring at Mr Graham. At least half the class is glassy eyed and not with boredom. I never would have thought there would be that many kids who could even understand the poem let alone actually connect with it.

_Her light that moves my body's heat  
__Will quench a lover's thirst,  
__Will leave a lover's mark.  
__Her absence now returns me,  
__My demons' burning dark._

I close my eyes when I catch the way that Brittany moves her hand to her mouth to smother a sob. She nearly never cries and I feel a tingle in my fingertips as I long to wrap my arms around her and push my hands through her hair. It's what I would do any time she was upset about anything. Ever since we were twelve years old, if Brittany was upset we would curl up together on one of our beds or in front of the TV and I would hold her, running my fingers along her scalp and through her soft, blonde hair.

I squeeze my hands into fists and hold onto the memory of Brittany instead. She has someone else to hold her now.

And I have my demons to keep me company


End file.
